Note No. 5763

                                                            14 November 2002

Note to Correspondents

TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN AND GIRLS TO BE DISCUSSED AT MEETING

IN GLEN COVE, NEW YORK, FROM 18 TO 22 NOVEMBER

NEW YORK, 14 November (Department of Economic and Social Affairs) -- The United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women, in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, is organizing an Expert Group Meeting on "Trafficking in women and girls" which will take place in Glen Cove, New York, from 18 to 22 November.

The expert group meeting will seek to facilitate coordination and links between existing and future strategies and programmes by focusing on the issue of best practices in combating trafficking of women and girls.  The meeting will focus on initiatives taken at the national and regional levels taking into consideration the following key areas of concern:  the contributory factors in trafficking in women and children and strategies to address these factors; the increasing association of racial and social marginalization with trafficking and the effects of these factors on women who have been trafficked; the impact of immigration laws on trafficking and migration; strategies and provision of remedies and redress for victims and access to justice, including witness protection; human rights protection for victims of trafficking; and the issue of repatriation for victims of trafficking and possible consequences thereof.

Trafficking of women and children is inextricably linked with violence against women and women’s human rights and is clearly addressed in the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome document of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly.  It is also addressed in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; its Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children; and its Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air. 

The complex and global nature of trafficking and the seriousness of related issues, such as repatriation of victims, requires a coordinated approach to combating the problem.  In order to achieve a coordinated approach to combating trafficking in women and girls, it is necessary to identify strategies and programmes which have been shown to be most effective.  It is also necessary to establish means by which such “best practices” may be applied in a variety of situations and with the most effective results.

The expert group meeting will form part of the Division’s preparation for the forty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which will

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                                                            14 November 2002

address as one of its thematic issues women’s human rights and elimination of all

forms of violence against women and girls as defined in the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome document of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly. The results of the meeting will also be relevant to the session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in 2003 which will address, among other issues, trafficking in persons, particularly women and children.

Experts at the meeting will include Esohe Amienghemwen Aghatise (Nigeria), Jean D’Cunha (India), Maria Grazia Giammarinaro (Italy), Aurora Javate de Dios (Philippines), Anna Gerardina Korvinus (Netherlands), Barbara Limanowska (Poland), Anàlia Beliza Ribeiro Pinto (Brazil), Tammy Quintanilla Zapata (Peru), Gulnara Shahinian (Armenia), and Ernest Taylor (Ghana).  Justice Sujata Manohar (India) who has prepared a background paper for the meeting as a consultant to the Division for the Advancement of Women will also participate.  In addition, observers from United Nations entities, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, academia and interested governments will attend.

For additional information on the meeting, please visit http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/trafficking2002.

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